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An easy to make, Minestrone soup recipe that tastes 1000 times better than the Olive Garden’s version! My minestrone soup is loaded with good for you veggies, like spinach and zucchini. It’s also protein packed with red kidney beans and great northern beans. You’ll be full for hours from this healthy, nutritious soup!
How about I throw a bunch of ingredients (say, veggies, beans, and pasta) into a crockpot and call it dinner? This slower cooker minestrone soup is probably going to be the easiest thing you’re ever going to cook. And the best part? You didn’t even need to turn on the stove!
I wonder if it’s even legal for me to call this a minestrone soup recipe? It’s ingredients that get tossed into the slow cooker and a few hours later, they come out in the form of a soup. Don’t you just love lunches and dinners like that? This gal right here is a big fan of those kinda meals.
This minestrone soup was one of the very best I have ever tasted. The sun-dried tomato pesto absolutely made this soup truly “over the top”.
Minestrone Soup Recipe Video:
So guys, I have news. I ♥ vegetables. And you already knew that. And now you know it even more.
My hope for you with this soup → that you make this on a really chilly and busy October night. It’s absolutely perfect for those days/nights when you have only 3,018,857 things to get done, and the fact that the crockpot is adulting for you and taking on the dinner responsibilities for the evening means you have the 30 minutes you would’ve spent making dinner to do what. ever. you. like.
Real excitement right there. Ideally, that would happen in a big, comfy chair with a good book and a warm blanket. These oh so rare, picture-perfect moments are brought to you by my slow cooker minestrone soup recipe.
Why this is the best minestrone soup recipe:
Shall I dare say my minestrone soup recipe is better than the Olive Garden’s version? Yes, I think I will. Don’t get me wrong; I first fell in love with Minestrone soup at the Olive Garden. It actually set the expectation of what a minestrone should be for me. The canned stuff was absolutely no good at all. And after researching the interweb until there weren’t any more recipes left to research, I decided to develop my own recipe.
So what makes my recipe unique and so much better? Well, I’ve got a secret ingredient. Any guesses? Okay, I’ll give you a hint. It’s in the picture above. And it’s a red blob. No, not the diced tomatoes, the other red blob.
*Shhh* I’m only sharing this with you because we’re friends. Ready for it?
Homemade Sun-dried tomato pesto!
That super concentrated flavor of tomato pesto is exactly what minestrone soup needs. Plus, the basil, parmesan, and pine nuts in the pesto add such a great, full-bodied flavor to the soup.
Also, since we’re sharing secret ingredients and all, toss in a few parmesan rinds into the minestrone soup. For herbs, I used dried oregano, fresh rosemary (because I had fresh on hand, dried is fine too), and a few bay leaves.
Recipe Tip
I should mention that this does make quite a batch of soup. So if you’re planning on making this for weekly lunches, I suggest cooking and keeping the pasta separately. Then you can add some to each serving before reheating.
This slower cooker minestrone soup is exactly what you need to warm up on a chilly evening. I served it with a few slices of baguette, toasted and rubbed down with a garlic clove.
We dipped, we dunked, and sipped, slurped soup (say that 3x fast) like it was our job. Garlic bread pairs beautifully with minestrone soup! It was a good evening. 🙂
Homemade Minestrone Soup (Slow Cooker)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1/4 cup sun-dried tomato pesto homemade or store-bought
- 1 parmesan rind
- 4 cups vegetable stock
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup carrots diced
- 1 1/4 cup celery diced
- 1 1/2 cup white onion diced
- 4 – 5 cloves garlic minced or pressed
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 sprig rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dried
- 2 bay leaves
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 (15-ounce) can red kidney beans drained and rinsed
- 1 (15-ounce) great northern beans drained and rinsed
- 1 1/2 cups zucchini diced
- 1 1/2 cups ditalini pasta or other small shapes
- 1 cup frozen green beans thawed
- 2 1/2 cups baby spinach chopped
- Parmesan cheese grated
Instructions
- Add the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato pesto, parmesan rind, vegetable stock, water, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, oregano, rosemary, and bay leaves to a slow cooker.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook on low heat 6-8 hours or high 3-4 hours.
- Add in red kidney beans, great northern beans, zucchini, and pasta and cook on high heat for an additional 20- 25 minutes until pasta is tender.
- Stir in the spinach and green beans and cook for an additional 5 minutes until heated through.
- Serve warm topped with parmesan cheese and garlic toasts.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like This? Leave a comment & rating below!
I just made this soup for my entire work place! It was a hit. I just left out the Parmesan to make it vegan friendly 🙂
Hello! Big thanks to you for this recipe. My friends are coming so I am thinking to make this recipe for them. I am sure they like it very much.
I couldn’t find the tomato pesto, so I just added a bit more tomato paste and some good quality basil pesto. Tastes pretty yummy, and I would not know the difference not having it the other way. Thanks for the recipe, this soup was one of my dad’s favorites. Wish I would have found this before he passed away…
I’m glad you enjoyed the soup Elyse! 🙂
I’m going to add a ham bone. I usually do but have not tried ur recipe. Will this work?
Susan, if this has worked for you in the past with a similar recipe, please use your best judgement as I have not tested this recipe with a ham bone.
Yes, Yes, Yes! I made this and it was AMAZING. My husband loved it, too. He’s definitely a meat guy, so I sauteed some Italian sausage for him to slice up on the side and he ended up dumping them in the soup and loved it even more. We also froze half of the recipe and it tasted great weeks later. Thanks for sharing this, it’s become an instant staple in my house 🙂
Can this be frozen?
The soup can be frozen, but i’d suggest freezing the batch prior to adding the pasta. When ready to serve, defrost, reheat and then add the pasta and let cook through. 🙂
I am planning to make your soup for Thanksgiving as the first course. I have 18 guests. Will this recipe provide enough servings. If not can I add to it
Thanks,
MELU
Hi Melu! Hmmmmm. It really depends on the size of the bowls you’ll be using for your first course. This makes about 7 quarts of soup. So if you’re serving small bowls, it could be enough. Or if you want to play it safe, and have a slow cooker that’s large enough, just multiply the ingredient quantities by 1.5 and make 1 ½ batches of it! Hope you all enjoy the soup 🙂
What type of meat would you recommend adding to this recipe? My hubs is likely to be happier if I add something? Can’t wait to try it!
Linda, you could serve this with grilled or baked chicken breasts on the side or sear cubes of chuck roast in a skillet (with salt and pepper) and add that in with all the other ingredients. I think another reader said they did that. A little unsure about the cooking time as I haven’t tried it this way myself, but it should be around the ball park of whats listed.
After putting this recipe together, as recipe states (except I substituted potatoes instead of zucchini.) in a crock pot it went on high so it could be ready in 3-4 hours……. And….. 6 hours later my celery, carrots, and potatoes all which were diced, were still not cooked through whatsoever. I immediately transferred it to a large Dutch oven. It is now simmering away, hopefully things will cook through.
Flavors are great, but…. I did not have any success using a crock pot. I’ll make this again using a Dutch oven instead of a crock pot.
It was a wonderful recipe regardless of the cooking set back. Thank you for sharing.
I’m a little unsure why your soup didn’t cook in the slow cooker in the given amount of time. I have not had anyone complain about this before. Perhaps your slow cooker runs cold? Glad to hear you still enjoyed it! 🙂
Well, this was freakin’ amazing! 🙂 I tweaked a little by upping the veggies by about 50% extra and adding an extra can of kidneys since we like a less broth-y soup, increased the spices a tad to go along with them, and just absolutely loved it. In case it helps anyone else, I easily found Classico roasted red pepper pesto right next to their jarred pasta sauce at WalMart of all places!
In fact, here’s the info on the pesto… https://www.classico.com/Products/Sun%20dried%20Tomato%20Pesto
I went on the Mezzeta website and could not locate the sun dried tomatoe pesto. Maybe discontinued? Want to make this, this week. Your recipe looks really good. I like to try different ones.
I did find it on Amazon and ordered it. It was free shipping.
I can’t wait to make this.
Do you have the nutritional info per serving?
Unfortunately I don’t have the nutrition information calculated. But myfitnesspal.com is a great site to calculate nutritional facts for recipes if you’d like to do that!
If you get the my fitness pal app go to more, my recipes and foods, click the little plus button, and then click on “add from the web” you can just paste the link to this recipie there and it will calculate everything for you!
Molly, thanks for sharing how the myfitnesspal app can import recipes from the web. I had no idea and it’s a game changer for me. THANK YOU!!
Hubby voted this my best soup ever, and my girl twin ate two HUGE bowls. (Her brother wasn’t fussed, but can’t please everyone, right?)
2 out of 3, i’ll take it! 🙂
I plan on trying your version out tomorrow, thank you! Ever since I learned about parmesan cheese rinds and figured out where to find them, I put them in all my slow cooker soups! Just a suggestion that you may want to add in a comment at the end to remove the rind and bay leaves from the soup before serving…
Where on earth would I find just a parmesan cheese rind? Never heard of that. Sorry to be dumb about this.
Hi Diane that’s not dumb at all!
You can find parmesan cheese rinds at your local grocer (or anywhere they have big wheels of parmesan that they cut up and sell in smaller pieces). Most cheesemongers will sell you the rinds at reduced rates or even give them to you for free (Whole Foods has done this for me in the past). I buy my parmesan from Trader Joe’s and several other grocery stores that sell parmesan with the rind attached. It looks kind of wavy and inedible, that’s the rind!
So are you saying the pasta will cook within 25 minutes of being in the slow cooker? I was thinking of adding the pasta cooked? Sorry, I’m a little confused about part 2.
Yes, the pasta will cook within the 25 minutes in the slow cooker. Feel free to cook the pasta separately and add it in just before serving but the soup will be thinner than if you had just cooked the pasta in the slow cooker. Hope that clarifies things. Hope that helps! 🙂
I made a variation of this soup today (it’s getting cooler in Australia!). Loved it! I made my own beef broth and added the meat from the steak. I also added anchovies for extra flavor. And I followed your advice about the Parmesan and sundried tomatoes – yum! Thanks for the recipe 🙂
This was very good. I added more of the veggies and added potatoes and tomato paste. Fabulous!
Michael@ItalianCuisinesandiego
Can I freeze the leftovers?
What would you recommend re cooking this recipe on the stove? I’d love to cook it in the slow cooker but mine is only half that size and I have company coming over and so I want to be able to make the full recipe?
Could I cook the instruction #1 in the pot and finish it up with step 2 on the stove top? Just with the beans and what not half an hour before serving?
Hi Rachel,
you can cook the soup on the stove, I would just use a large dutch oven or any other pot with a thick bottom. Cook the soup exactly as stated but yours will most likely take a maximum of 2 1/2-3 1/2 hours of cooking before adding in the beans. Stir every 30 minutes or so. Make sure to cook it on medium low to ensure maximum flavor without overcooking the veggies.
Pardon my ignorance but I have never used sun dried tomato pesto. Do you make it or buy it in a jar? Is there a recipe for it? I’m anxious to try this recipe. Thanks! Marci
Hi Marci. You can make sun dried tomato pesto or purchase it in a jar. Either will work. I used a store bought tomato pesto, I know Mezzetta makes a tomato pesto that’s available in most grocery stores in the U.S. If you can’t find it where you live, try searching the web for a recipe. I haven’t made it myself before so unfortunately I don’t have one to recommend to you. Hope this helps! 🙂
Thank you very much for your prompt reply. I will look for it at my grocery store here in Texas. Have a lovely Valentine’s Day!
I found it at HEB Marci! Its in the same section as the pasta sauces. 🙂 I am on the last step of ours right now! 🙂
My husband and I love this soup. I am celiac (no gluten) and the biggest thing I have to modify is how to add the pasta. We use GF macaroni, and cook it separately, adding it to individual bowls. I didn’t do this the first time, and the pasta completely disintegrated, and soaked up all of the liquid in the soup. But keeping the pasta separate worked like a charm.